Why? This feature existed long before open had 3 arguments, why would it suddenly change.

It still cannot really fix the problem, since scripts will now die if they encounter an invalid file

There is no problem to fix. Sanitize your @ARGV if you insist on magic.

MJDsays you
can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!
I run a Win32 PPM
repository for perl 5.6x+5.8x. I take requests.
** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

And nobody in his right mind would expect the magic <> to be actually implemented in Perl. Do you? I think, not. C provides far less dangerous library functions.

Now that's just ridiculous.
Larry and the perl 5 porters who wrote it expected it to behave that way,
as would anyone who read the documentation.

MJDsays you
can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!
I run a Win32 PPM
repository for perl 5.6x+5.8x. I take requests.
** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

Why? This feature existed long before open had 3 arguments, why would it suddenly change.

I didn't think it would use normal perl open internally. Given that two-arg open enables command execution and that at that time only one- and two-arg open existed, I think it should have opened files by other means.

But we live in a world that has three-arg open now. It's time to change, imo.